Adventures of Elegy Flynn

by Chambers, V. J.

  “Let’s get back to the point here,” I said. “Which is, ‘Shakespeare was gay?’“

  Elegy scooped up some ice and began pouring rum and juice over it. “I thought everyone knew by your time period. They weren’t really suppressing it, then, I didn’t think.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “Well, he wasn’t really gay,” said Lizzy.

  “Please,” said Elegy. She poured my rum runner into a metal shaker glass and then back into my glass. “That sonnet about the summer’s day and the darling buds and whatnot? It’s written to a man.”

  My jaw dropped. “Seriously?”

  Elegy topped my drink with an umbrella and handed it to me. “Seriously.”

  Lizzy eyed my drink. She didn’t look happy. “He had affairs with women. He was married. He had three children.”

  “So he was bisexual?” I said. Did that make it easier to take? I really wasn’t sure.

  “Oh please,” said Elegy. “He was trying to hide his proclivities. He was gay. He was through and through rainbow colored. He was a card-carrying friend of Dorothy.”

  “Friend of what?” I said.

  “If I’m going to have to talk to that professor again, I’m going to need a glass of wine,” Lizzy told Elegy. She shot me a glance. “And he did like women.”

  I sipped at my drink. This was extraordinarily weird. Shakespeare gay? Romeo and Juliet written by a gay guy? Wait a second. I did kind of remember that Romeo had seemed awfully close to that Mercutio dude. “So I don’t get it,” I said. “If Shakespeare was gay, what’s the big deal about outing him?”

  “Well,” said Elegy, “during Elizabethan England, it wasn’t exactly a good idea to be open about such things. Our time traveling friend has made it so that Shakespeare gets put in jail for sodomy and that half of his plays don’t get written or performed and that the ones that are already written get burned in a huge bonfire in the center of London.”

  “Oh,” I said. I drank some more of my rum runner. Elegy was very good at mixing drinks. “I guess that’s bad.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Elegy. “Do you have any idea what kind of shape society would be in without Shakespeare?”

  “There’s the time paradox too,” said Lizzy.

  Time paradoxes happened because time travelers changed something, and then when it got to be time for them to go back in time to change it, they couldn’t, because it didn’t need to be changed anymore. That really threw all of time into panic mode. Houses floated and the sky turned funny colors. It was bad news. If Elegy and the volurs didn’t fix the paradoxes, then the fabric of time ripped apart. All in all, we were doing very important work in Elegy’s time-traveling bar.

  “Yes, of course. The time paradox,” said Elegy.

  “Which I’m not going to fix without wine,” said Lizzy. “I can’t talk to that professor again if I’m sober. It will drive me insane.”

  “Maybe,” said Elegy, getting a wine glass, “there’s a way you could avoid talking to the professor at all.” She opened a wine bottle and poured some into the glass.

  “And what would that be?”

  Elegy took a sip of the wine.

  Lizzy threw up her hands in disgust. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “I’ll give you the wine when we fix the problem, Lizzy,” said Elegy. “That’s the agreement we worked out, or don’t you remember? You’re the one who insisted that you didn’t get any wine until you were finished with the job. Something about rewards and motivation and—”

  “Shut up.” Lizzy looked ready to strangle Elegy.

  “Anyway,” said Elegy, “why don’t you just get Shakespeare and bring him back to the bar?”

  “Here?” I said, getting excited.

  “Sure,” said Elegy. “The bar can change appearance so that it looks like something out of the sixteenth century. The bar will translate whatever we say so that we all can understand each other. Why not?”

  My eyes lit up. “I’m going to meet Shakespeare?!”

  “No,” Lizzy said.

  “No?” Elegy said.

  “No?” I said. I was disappointed. I hadn’t gotten to meet Hitler—not that I really wanted to—and I was beginning to be a little annoyed with this whole time traveling thing. Sure, I got to go anywhere in time and space. But it kind of sucked that I never got to leave the bar.

  “I know him,” said Lizzy, sighing. “Just forget whatever I said about rewards and motivation and give me a goddamned drink, Elegy. This is not shaping up to be a great day.”

  “Lizzy, you told me never to listen to you whenever you insisted I give you a drink,” said Elegy. “And what do you mean, you know him?”

  Lizzy stalked across the bar and threw herself down on a couch next to the pool table. “I’m from the 1500s, okay? I witnessed a time paradox, and then I got snapped up to do volur work and fix the time continuum. But before that, I was just a regular serving wench at a tavern in London. And I knew William Shakespeare.”

  I swiveled around on my bar stool to face her. “Whoa. That’s so much cooler than the 1980s.”

  Elegy took another sip of wine. “You know him? Perfect. Then it will be easy to get him back here, won’t it?”

  “Oh God,” said Lizzy. She rolled over so that her face was buried in the couch cushions. The next thing she said was muffled.

  “What was that?” Elegy asked.

  Lizzy lifted her head. “I said, ‘Fine.’“

  “Great,” said Elegy. She drank some more wine.

  * * *

  “She’ll be back any minute,” Elegy was saying as she mixed me another rum runner, “and when she shows up, I don’t want you to be alarmed. The bar is going to look completely different, and you’re not going to hear Shakespeare talking in early modern English or anything. He’ll sound normal. Plus, there are some rules you have to follow if you’re meeting someone famous in history.”

  “Rules?” I wondered if there were going to be a lot of them. I’d have to drink that rum runner slowly, or I’d get tipsy and forget all of them.

  Elegy handed me my drink. “First of all, never mention anything from their lives.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because maybe it hasn’t happened yet,” she said. “Or maybe it did happen, but it will seem odd that you know about it.”

  I guessed that made sense. “What else?”

  “Don’t act excited to see them. Treat them like a normal person.”

  “But it’s Shakespeare, for God’s sake.”

  Elegy ran a rag over the bar. “Just try to stay calm, please. And in the case of Shakespeare, never, under any circumstances, quote anything he wrote at him.”

  “But—”

  “Everyone wants to do that,” Elegy said. “Don’t. It’s tacky.”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know much Shakespeare to quote at him anyway.

  The door to the bar opened. I blinked, because the bar had changed. Instantly. Instead of the late twentieth century sports bar from before, it had become a Renaissance tavern. There were wooden chairs and tables set up on a stone floor. Instead of a cooler full of bottles, there were only barrels of beer and meade along the wall. Instead of stacks of glassware, there were metal tankards. I wasn’t sitting on a barstool anymore. Instead I was standing.

  And speaking of me—my clothes had changed. I was totally wearing a full-on big skirt and white laced up corset-y thing. It made my boobs look huge. “I’m a bar wench,” I said softly. “Neat.”

  “Well, that’s excellent,” said a male voice, “because I’m always out looking for new wenches.”

  I looked in the direction of the door. Lizzy, also in Renaissance clothing, was standing next to William Shakespeare himself.

  He didn’t look a thing like those paintings of him. In the paintings, he was all balding and sort of delicate looking. This Shakespeare had a full head of hair and was quite a sturdy man. He had broad shoulders, and he wore a loose white shirt with a pair o
f somewhat dirty breeches. His beard was wild and unkempt. His nose was a little crooked. He had bright eyes, though, and he was smiling. He winked at me. “You volunteering for some wenchery?”

  It was William fucking Shakespeare. I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.

  He turned over his shoulder to look at Lizzy. “You won’t mind if she joins in, will you, Liz?”

  Lizzy rolled her eyes and nudged him in the direction of one of the wooden tables. “Sit down, Will.”

  Wait. Join in? Like... I glanced at Elegy. “I thought you said he was gay,” I whispered.

  Elegy just shrugged. She sidled over to Shakespeare. “Can I get you a drink?”

  Shakespeare rubbed his beard. “Well, I was on my way to meet someone before I ran into Lizzy here.”

  “I had a heck of a time convincing him to come with me,” Lizzy said. “But I’ve got him here now, and I think I deserve some wine.” She gave Elegy a pointed look.

  Elegy considered. “All right, all right, Lizzy. A glass of wine for you. And Will, was it?”

  “Shakespeare,” said Shakespeare. “William Shakespeare. I’m a playwright. Well, I was until they closed the theaters because of the plague. I’ve been working on some sonnets recently. Anyway, you might have heard of me?”

  Elegy smiled. “Don’t see too much theater myself.” She brought Lizzy some wine.

  Lizzy took a sip, relief evident on her face.

  “I wrote a little play called Titus Andronicus?” said Shakespeare. “It’s great. It’s got severed hands, severed heads, tongues cut out, people baked in pies?”

  My eyes widened. “I’ve never heard of that.” How many plays did Shakespeare write, anyway? That one sounded... disgusting.

  Shakespeare’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have.”

  “Don’t let it get to you,” I said. “I’m sure you’re going to be really famous one day.”

  He chuckled. “You’re about as bad a liar as Lizzy is.” He turned to her. “I thought we were going someplace to be alone.”

  Lizzy pressed her lips together in firm line. “Let’s just have a drink, Will.”

  “I really am supposed to be meeting someone,” said Shakespeare.

  “How about an ale?” asked Elegy. She didn’t wait for an answer, just bustled over to where the barrels were and filled up a tankard with some frothing liquid. “This person you were meeting, is he a... friend?”

  Shakespeare stood up. “I don’t like your tone. What are you implying?”

  Elegy went to him and thrust the tankard into his hands. “Nothing, nothing. You know, it’s just that if this friend of yours were, say, a very close friend to whom you were planning on writing 126 sonnets, you might try to be pretty discreet about that, you know? Because if people were to see you and this friend—”

  “What have you heard?” Shakespeare slammed his drink down against the table. Liquid sloshed over the sides. He glared down at Elegy, fire in his eyes.

  Wait a second. Hadn’t Elegy just broken one of her own rules right there? Five minutes ago, I could have sworn she was telling me never to mention anything from a famous person’s life. Especially something that hadn’t happened yet. I took a drink of rum runner, feeling annoyed. To add insult to injury, my rum runner had somehow morphed into a kind of spiced wine kind of drink. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t nearly as sweet as the rum runner had been. I set it down.

  Elegy folded her arms over her chest. “Lizzy and I were just trying to protect you.”

  “Protect me?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Look,” said Elegy, “it’s obvious that you’re in love with the guy. I think that’s fine, as far as it goes. But other people in your time period are not so open minded. And I would hate for anything to happen to you or to your plays.”

  “In love with...?” he trailed off in disgust.

  Elegy sat down at the table, across from Shakespeare’s drink. “‘The master mistress of my passion’?” she said. “‘Since she pricked you out for women’s pleasure’?”

  Hey! That was another rule. Never quote the famous person. Elegy said it was tacky. I glowered at her.

  Shakespeare looked flabbergasted.

  “What? Haven’t you written that one yet? Are you still in the phase where you’re trying to convince him to have kids?” Elegy asked.

  Shakespeare sat down at the table. He picked up his drink and took a big gulp. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It isn’t like that.” His voice was low. “We aren’t...” He took another drink. “I have a wife and children, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes,” said Lizzy, “and of course you consider your marriage vows sacred.” She drained her wine glass.

  Shakespeare glanced at her, surprised. “What is this, gang-up-on-Will day?”

  Lizzy didn’t answer.

  Shakespeare turned back to Elegy. “And you. How do you know those things about my poems?”

  “Oh, come on,” said Elegy. “You’re always writing about witches and fairies and sprites and things. Certainly—” She broke off, because Shakespeare looked extremely confused. “Well, you will write about those things. Someday. I hope.” She looked away for a second as if she was mentally checking something. Then she looked back at Shakespeare. “Yep. Safe. I haven’t ruined that.” She grinned. “I know things.”

  Shakespeare sat back in his chair. “Things about my future?”

  “Not the point,” said Elegy, looking flustered. “The point is, keep your boyfriend a secret.”

  “What kind of woman are you?” He searched her face. “Are you a witch? Is that what you said?”

  Elegy swept up Shakespeare’s tankard. “Refill?”

  Shakespeare got up and went after her. “You must know what happens to witches.”

  Elegy turned on him. “And you must know what happens to sodomites.”

  Shakespeare blanched. “I’m not spending any more time here.” He started for the door.

  “Wait!” said Elegy. “I’m just saying to be careful. There’s nothing wrong with a little butt sex between consenting adults...”

  The door slammed.

  Elegy made a face. “That didn’t go very well, did it?”

  “Understatement of the year,” I said. “Why’d you bother giving me all those rules if you weren’t even going to follow them?”

  “Butt sex?” said Lizzy.

  “Oh, it probably translated into something less vulgar in Elizabethan,” Elegy snapped. She sank down in a chair at one of the tables. She got that faraway look in her eyes again, and I could tell she was reading the future again. “Shit.”

  Lizzy and I looked at her expectantly.

  “We’re going to have to try that again,” said Elegy. “It seems that I spooked Shakespeare so much that he broke off his affair with the guy from the sonnets, quit writing, and went back to Stratford to live out his days as footnote in history.”

  “You did what?” said Lizzy.

  “I’m sorry!” said Elegy. “I got carried away. It’s not every day you meet Big Gay Shakespeare.”

  “He’s not even gay,” said Lizzy.

  “He was kind of flirting with me,” I pointed out.

  “Fine,” said Elegy. “It’s just that Big Bisexual Shakespeare doesn’t have quite the same ring.” She rested her elbows on the table and cupped her face. “On the bright side, since the bar is out of time, there’s no paradox.”

  “Yeah, but there’s no Shakespeare either,” I said. “All we have is Titus Andronicus. Who ever heard of that anyway?”

  “There’s a really awesome movie with Anthony Hopkins,” said Elegy. “We should watch it sometime. Except... damn. It doesn’t get made now, because no one ever reads Titus Andronicus.”

  “So I have to go get him again,” said Lizzy. She shook her head. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “I’ll fix it,” said Elegy. “All you have to do is get him here, and I’ll do the rest.”

  “It would pr
obably be better if you didn’t say much,” Lizzy said. She was pretty pissed off. I guess she didn’t much like Shakespeare. I wondered why. “Besides, it’s not like we can undo it, is it? So, the next time he sees me, he’s going to be considerably harder to convince to come along.”

  “Why can’t you just go back to right before Lizzy brought him here and make it so that never happened?” I asked. Wasn’t that what we did? We fixed time?

  “It would create two of me,” said Lizzy. “I’d split off into alternate timelines. But alternate timelines can’t exist, so there would be another paradox.”

  “Why would it make two of you?”

  “Look,” said Lizzy, “if I don’t get Shakespeare into the bar like I just did, then I can’t be in the bar right now, can I? So if I go back and mess with my own timeline like that, then there will be the me who just talked to Shakespeare and the me who went back in time and made it so that me never talked to Shakespeare. Both me and that other me can’t coexist.”

  I made a face. “Is this why Kellen said he couldn’t cross his own timeline?”

  “Exactly,” said Elegy.

  I thought I got it. But it was all too confusing. Maybe it was just better to smile and nod. I smiled and nodded.

  Elegy was thinking. “Maybe he wouldn’t come with you.” She thought some more. “What I’ll do is move the bar so that when he stalks out the door like he just did, he opens the door to the bar and comes right back in.”

  “Well, that won’t make him suspicious that something weird is going on,” said Lizzy.

  “Oh, whatever,” said Elegy. “This is the man who wrote that there were more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in philosophy. He’ll get over it.” She took a deep breath. “All right, get ready, because the bar is moving now. Shakespeare’s going to walk back through that door in—”

  The door opened. “What the hell?” said Shakespeare, turning around and looking behind himself, the way he’d come. He glanced at us, then glanced at the door he’d slammed behind himself. “How...?”

  Elegy took him by the arm and led him inside the bar. “So it’s weird,” she said. “Get over it.” She dragged him to a seat and forced him into it. “You can’t quit writing, okay?”